I took a hiatus from my IBM products review and now I am back to move to the next rung of the ladder….communicate.
For me, this is the most convoluted of all the areas of B2B integration. I think it is because I have been removed from the communications aspect of data integration for some time. Just looking at all the IBM products in the B2B Integration and Managed File Transfer product lines, made my head spin. For this reason, I'm going to split this blog into several to cover all the products.
Back in my early days of being an EDI Analyst, the data center had a modem bank and I would write JCL that would initiate the dial-up communications to either a VAN or trading partner directly. Nowadays, communication is done via a Value-Added Network (VAN), direct, internet, or gateway.
Let's start with the software in IBM's B2B Integration pillar of products. These are Transformation Extender or ITX (formerly WebSphere Transformation Extender or WTX), Gentran (Gentran:Server and Gentran:Director Pro), WebSphere Data Interchange (WDI), and Sterling B2B Integrator. I talked about the transform/translate capabilities of these products in a prior blog titled Transform And Translate - A Key Component to B2B Integration.
Transformation Extender and WebSphere Data Interchange do not include communications. They can both be integrated with several of IBM's managed file transfer or messaging products such as WebSphere Partner Gateway or IBM Integration Bus.
Gentran:Server, Gentran:Director, and Gentran:Director Pro include communication scripts for transmissions to/from a Value-Added Network (VAN) or directly to/from a trading partner. Among the protocols available are TCP/IP and FTP. While communications is a function of these packages, they do not have robust error handling, restart/recovery, visibility, or backup/audit trail capabilities. Companies that have implemented these products have built their own processes to handle these exceptions. These products do not support AS communications (AS1, AS2, or AS3) and another package would be needed to use those protocols.
IBM Sterling B2B Integrator is an integration suite that includes mapping, versioning, security, business process modeling, visibility, communications, etc. B2B Integrator supports any communication standard or protocol, large-file handling, and policy-based file transfer.
Next time, I will review the products in the Managed File Transfer product line.
